Protestants and the Irish Language, c. 1675–1725

Abstract

Early modern Ireland defied its English and Protestant rulers and remained largely Catholic. Historians have explained this situation variously: in terms of Protestant feebleness, official indifference or Catholic vigour. Among Protestant failings, scant use of the Irish language has been listed. An attitude to the Irish tongue, at best ambiguous and at worst hostile, can be connected first with English concepts of civility and then with the severe Calvinist theology which pulsed through the Established Church of Ireland in the early seventeenth century, and which, by equating those already Protestant with the elect, justified devoting its sparse resources to them. In contrast, the Catholic Irish, because irredeemably reprobate, together with their language, could be ignored.